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Month: January 2017

Our world has changed so much since I was a kid. There is so much to entertain. Sometimes we even need to be entertained while being entertained! It’s literally at our fingertips. With so much to distract, it’s easy to get into some bad habits. How often do we favor scrolling through our phone than paying attention to our spouse or children? What message are you conveying when your child needs something and you take your time to respond so you can finish reading your article or playing your game? Relationships take effort. Being present speaks volumes of love. It says, you are important, and worth my time. We have made a few decisions in our house to help us make time for being intentional with our family.

No devices at the dinner table. We eat meals together as a family, and everyone sets aside their phones (or toys for the younger ones). Mealtime is probably the most important time of the day to engage with each other.

No TV’s in the bedroom. This was a little more difficult to give up, but I’m so glad we did. The bedroom is for sex, and for sleeping.

Play games! Board games are so different from when we were children. There are so many different kinds of games out there. El Fury and I love playing games together, and it’s a great way to engage with each other. We watch TV sometimes, but that feels more like parallel play. There are a lot of cooperative games out there too, so you can even be on the same team.

We often say to our kids “people are more important” when they want to play on their tablets instead of hang out with our family. It’s a good thing for them to hear, and a good reminder for us as well.

We also try not to be on our phones in the evening. After the kids go to bed it’s our time to hang out. We guard that time. We don’t get on our computers or phones, we spend time together.

When your spouse is talking to you, set your phone aside, and look them in the eye. They should be more important to you. Your relationship is with a person and not a device. At the end of your life are you going to be happy for all the time you spent with your spouse, or are you going to wish you would have spent more time on your phone?

Men often wonder what an orgasm feels like for women — there’s no way to directly share the experience, but the frenulum of a man’s penis apparently has very similar nerve endings to those in the frenulum of a woman’s clitoris. What’s a frenulum, you ask?

The frenulum of prepuce of penis, often known simply as the frenulum, is an elastic band of tissue under the glans penis that connects the foreskin (prepuce) to the vernal mucosa, and helps contract the foreskin over the glans.

You’ve got a frenulum in your mouth, too: it’s the elastic band of tissue under your tongue.

Hopefully that’s enough info for you husbands to locate the frenulum of your penis. Unfortunately the frenulum is often removed during circumcision, but the important nerves may still be present in the V-shaped nook under the head of your penis.

Once you’ve found the frenulum the rest is pretty easy: ask your wife to rub it or lick it until you reach orgasm. Here are a few tips to make the most out of your experience.

Light touch. Your wife should focus her touch on the frenulum and avoid stimulating the rest of your penis. She can use her tongue, one or two fingers, or her thumb, whichever is most comfortable for her. (Considering how long a frenulum orgasm can take to build up, she might decide to start with her hand and then finish with her mouth.)

Don’t squeeze. Refrain from squeezing your pelvic muscles — stay relaxed. As you get more aroused you’re going to feel a strong urge to squeeze, but squeezing will short-circuit the slowly-building orgasm and lead to a “normal” orgasm.

Lube. If your wife is using her fingers instead of her tongue, we recommend using silicone-based lube. Water-based lube evaporates pretty fast and she’ll have to keep re-applying it.

Communicate. Tell your wife what feels the best, but try not to beg for more intense stimulation. You’ve got to…

Be patient. Just like the clitoris, the frenulum builds up stimulation very slowly.The first time we tried this I wasn’t able to climax even after 45 minutes! The second time (after not having sex for 24 hours) I reached orgasm in about 10 minutes. (If you want to speed things up, you can cheat by squeezing your pelvic muscles.) As you do it more, you’ll learn how to reach orgasm from frenulum stimulation more quickly without cheating.

Return the favor. You may as well keep your fingers busyplaying with your wife while she touches you! Your wife is hopefully pretty familiar with clitoral stimulation and will probably reach orgasm long before you do (if you don’t cheat).

Even though the stereotype is that men are more familiar with their bodies than women are, many men have little experience with their frenulum as a distinct part of their penis. Hopefully this technique will give some husbands and wives a new way to explore and enjoy the husband’s body! If you have any tips or questions, please leave a comment.

Update: Keelie Reason at Love Hope Adventure has posted a 10-minute video about frenulum technique. She’s right in saying that most men have no idea that they can have an orgasm this way, and it’s a great opportunity for a wife to show her husband something new about his body!

Reader “LM” sent us a long email with several questions, so let’s address each in turn.

I’m writing as a BIG fan of your blog. My fiancée (girlfriend at the time) and I started reading your blog last summer, as a way to facilitate healthy conversations about sex. It has been so helpful to have conversation starters from a Christian perspective, and it has helped us have open and honest conversations about expectations for sex inside marriage. We recently got engaged, and are getting married in March. As the big day gets closer, we decided to put together a list of some questions we had, in the hopes that you could provide some insight.

Congratulations on your engagement! It means so much to us to receive emails like this. We write this blog to edify Christian marriages, and we’re very encouraged when we hit our target. (It’s worth linking to an earlier post for newlyweds: Sex Q&A: About to Be Married, First-Time Sex.)

Before we get to LM’s specific questions, I should say that it’s not our place to give or withhold permission for what you do in your marriage — that’s between you, your spouse, and God. Read Can we *BLANK*? for more info, and check out 1 Corinthians 8. Follow the leading of the Holy Spirit with discernment and humility.

Here are the questions.

1) We’re both very excited about role play, however, we had a question. In almost all role playing scenarios (teacher-schoolgirl, KGB agent-American spy, etc), the characters are not married. In this case, are you acting out a scenario (sex between unmarried people) that is not honoring to God? OR is it ok because the people actually having sex (me and my soon to be wife) ARE married?

2) Speaking of role play, have you guys ever played out a scenario which has caused you to lust after an actor / actress? My fiancée is a huge Lord of the Rings / Harry Potter fan, and would love to role play some of those characters. My worry is that that might cause one or both of us to think about the actors or actresses we’re role playing during sex instead of each other.

These two questions are great examples of the need for discernment and wisdom. Strictly speaking, you aren’t sinning if your sexual thoughts are aimed exclusively at your spouse. However, if this kind of role-play causes your sexual focus to wander away from your spouse, then it might be sin for you and you should avoid it. You need to be honest with each other, with yourselves, and with God. Flee from sexual immorality and do whatever most strengthens your marriage and your walk with God.

Sexy Corte and I don’t role-play as characters from pop culture — we make up our own characters, and have quite a collection. Characters from books and movies aren’t real people, so lusting after your-wife-as-Hermione doesn’t seem problematic to me.

3) Have you guys ever had sex to music, and found yourself lusting after the artist singing the song? There is some really sexy music out there, but I’m worried that I might end up thinking about the singer during sex, if it’s someone I find attractive.

We occasionallyplay music during sex, and lusting after the artist had never occurred to us. If music is a stumbling block for you then don’t use it, or listen to music performed by ugly artists!

4) We’ve seen your recommendations to shave prior to the wedding night, but we’re worried that after one or two days of smooth, things may get prickly and uncomfortable. Is there a way to avoid this?

We’ve written about shaving for husbands and wives, and we both really enjoy the sensations of having smooth skin. Of course, shaved hair grows back! We typically shave every few days in the shower, and it only takes a couple of minutes once you’re proficient. If you don’t want to maintain it so frequently you can try waxing, but the hair will still grow back (and waxing costs a lot more money than shaving). You can also try laser hair removal, which costs even more money but can eliminate the hairs (almost) permanently. It’s really a matter of preference.

5) What do couples usually do when the woman is a virgin and there’s the potential that she’ll bleed in the hotel room? Do you just leave it and let the maid change the sheets the next day? Do you bring your own sheets?

Put down a towel and/or leave a nice tip. Honeymoon nights aren’t unique in dirtying hotel sheets, so I wouldn’t worry about it too much. Do yourself a favor and don’t inspect your hotel room with a UV light.

6) One of the things we’ve talked about is the idea of dirty talk, particularly if it involves cussing. We think it could be hot, but we wanted to hear your thoughts.

Sexy time is pretty much the only time we swear, and yes, it can be hot. There’s nothing sinful about any particular words — it’s all about how you use them. If the words edify your marriage, then great! If they insult or discomfort your spouse, then don’t use them.

Got some thoughts to share? Please leave a comment!

Please use the contact pages for Sexy Corte and El Fury to send us your questions. We will only share your question if you give us permission, and we’ll never reveal your name or any other identifying information. You can ask questions anonymously, or use a free anonymous email server like Mailinator.

We get hundreds of emails asking for marriage and sex help, and in almost every case the second step of our advice is to talk with your spouse. (The first step is to talk with God through prayer.) Most emails include a disclaimer like:

I’ve already tried to talk to my wife about this, but she just won’t listen.

So… you want advice that doesn’t include talking to your spouse? Well, you can’t just skip past that.

There are a gazillion books you can read about how to have productive conversations, but today I want to share one of the most important tips I’ve learned: stop asking “why?” so much. If you have kids, you know how annoying it can be to constantly hear “why? why? why?”. This question seems to crop up around age three, and never stops. Hopefully as adults we don’t smother our spouses with “why” so often, but the question can often do more harm than good.

Oftentimes a husband (especially) will want to hammer away at “the problem” and “fix it”, so he asks “why?” over and over, hoping to discover the knob he can twist just the right way to make his wife do/feel what she “should”.

Sound familiar? Wives do it, too. It’s no surprise that conversations like this aren’t effective for building intimacy. “Why?” can be a powerful tool for gaining understanding, but it isn’t the right tool for every job! Here are a few ways it can backfire.

Passive aggressive. You know this one. Even if you aren’t trying to be passive aggressive, these kinds of questions can be received that way. But be honest: oftentimes, you’re being passive aggressive.

“Why didn’t you take the trash out?”

“Why are you late?”

“Why don’t you want to have sex?”

Interrogation. Trying to nail down your spouse with words. You make it appear that you’re just trying to understand the truth of the situation, but what you’re actually doing is forcing your spouse into the corner until he admits some mistake or failure. These are often “why… but…?” accusations.

“Why did you say you were getting Christmas cards for my family, but then not mail them in time?”

“Why did you say you want more intimacy, but then every time I want to have sex you’re too tired?”

“Why do you not feel the way we both agreed you should feel?”

Digging. Sometimes your spouse doesn’t know the answer, or there isn’t an answer, but you keep asking “why?” anyway. You rephrase the same question over and over, sure that if you keep digging you’ll eventually find gold.

“Why don’t we have more sex? Why don’t you want to have sex? Why has our sex life stalled?”

“Why do you feel that way? Why don’t you feel this way?”

Rephrasing. “Why?” is often a fine question to ask once, but using different words doesn’t make the question more helpful.

“What makes you feel that way?”

“How did this come to pass?”

When you’re starting a difficult conversation, stay away from “why” and instead focus on “what” and “how”.

“How do you feel about our sex life?”

“How do you want our sex life to make you feel?”

“What is your favorite thing that we do together?”

“What do you think is missing?”

Accept the answers without comment or judgement. Asking “why?” will make your spouse defensive, literally — you’re asking her to defend her answers with a reason that’s good enough for you to accept. It can be difficult to hold back your opinion, but usually that’s your pride prompting you. Your pride says things like:

“She shouldn’t feel that way.”

“I deserve a husband who does XYZ.”

“I can convince her…”

“That’s not fair.”

“His answer shows that he doesn’t love/respect/understand me!”

“How can she possibly think that?”

These comments are unlikely to be helpful, but your pride insists that you say them anyway. Your pride tells you that your feelings are right, justified, and logical, and his feelings are wrong, mistaken, or cruel. It’s so obvious, right? He’s sure to realize the error of his ways if you just ask the right “why” question.

Don’t feel bad; we all fall into the pride trap.

So, before you ask “why?”, consider: will my question enhance intimacy, or irritation? If you mostly care about being right, then by all means, hammer away with “why?” until you smash everything in sight. On the other hand, if you mostly care about intimacy with your spouse, use “why?” very judiciously and give her the space and respect to think and feel without having to justify herself to you. Your spouse will feel secure and respected, which are key building blocks of intimacy.

If you’re a husband like me, then you love giving your wife a huge, body-shaking, scream-inducing orgasm. There’s just about nothing better. Most advice for more and better orgasms focuses on techniques you can use in the bedroom, but some researchers have looked in a different direction: qualities of men who give great orgasms. Here are the male traits that lead to more and better orgasms for their partners, as identified by the study, along with some related links from our site.

Sense of humor: We haven’t written a lot about humor explicitly, but we find that it arises naturally when we get out of our comfort zone, try new things, and free ourselves to look silly. Most recently: Pirates and Poetry Night.

Wealth: Not much to say here, but probably less relevant in a marriage than in a dating relationship.

The researchers wrote: “Orgasm intensity was related to how attracted (women) were to their partners, how many times they had sex per week and ratings of sexual satisfaction.”

“Those with partners who their friends rated as more attractive also tended to have more intense orgasms.”

“Sexual satisfaction was related to how physically attracted women were to their partner and the breadth of his shoulders.”

“Their partner’s sense of humor not only predicted his self-confidence and family income, but it also predicted women’s propensity to initiate sex, how often they had sex and it enhanced their orgasm frequency in comparison with other partners.”

It’s important to realize that all of these qualities are relative. You don’t have to be the richest, handsomest, funniest man in the world — you just have to display some measure of these qualities to your wife! Husbands, however you rate yourselves now, consider ways to move up a notch. Lay off the snacks. Lift some weights. Do some power poses in the bathroom before you go to bed. Buy some shirts that fit.